Monday, January 23, 2017

My Fool-Proof Smoothie Formula: Easy Way to Add More Fruit, Veg, & Health To Your Life

Nearly everyone is trying to add more fruits and veggies to their diet. We're all busy, it's not always easy to prepare three square nutritious meals daily, but smoothies make packing in the nutrients so simple! It's crazy for me to think back just six years ago when I was first learning to change my lifestyle and eat very healthfully. My first smoothies were overly-thick slop made using recipes on the back on my hemp powder and other supplements. NOT tasty. The whole process seemed like an uncrackable mystery, now I've taught multiple workshops on nutritious smoothie creation and made countless hundreds for myself and others.

It was SO fun and rewarding to show them, live, with a batch of greens, fruits, and other goodies behind me, how to make their own smoothies to exactly their tastes at home. They got wrapped up writing exactly recipes, but you don't need a rolodex or books on perfect smoothies to make them. I use the formula below to churn out perfect smoothies each time:

*The coconut oil makes your smoothie amazingly creamy and helps with assimilation of the nutrients in your smoothie. With the coconut oil and the nuts it's like you're consuming a milkshake for breakfast, it's delicious! The nuts and water blend to basically make your own nut milk in the smoothie.

I buy bags of frozen fruit usually but freezing in-season fruits and vegetables is an excellent way to go with your smoothies.

Do you have a go-to healthy recipe or smoothie formula/recipe? AJ and I have this formula down to a science, we love to throw one together before leaving the house, as a snack betweens meals or for dinner. I used to have three smoothies per day but fell off from it, maybe that should be a challenge for 2017! Let's get creative and make getting healthier delicious, too.

I use a vitamix. One thing that drives me crazy about it is when it comes to making raw vegan cheeses, the base where the blades are is narrow and it's so hard to get everything out. I haven't USED the blendtec that you can unscrew the base with but it does save you a lot of yummy nut cheese/hummus/etc. so if I could do it again I might get that one. Blendec and vitamix are both excellent and I HIGHLY recommend a high speed blender, it made a NIGHT/DAY difference with smoothies and making healthy blended soups, etc. You can run them longer and it warms up the soup!

Vanessa, this sounds like a good smoothie "recipe" to whip up! I do fruit smoothies for the kiddos once in awhile, but don't really do it for myself. I should really start incorporating this in my diet. And agree with the comment above...thanks for the coconut oil tip:)